Maher Gohary is a new Christian convert from a Muslim background currently engaged in a long legal battle to change his state-issued religious registration from his old status of ‘Muslim’ to reflect his new status as a ‘Christian’. This will allow Mr Gohary and his family to be identified accurately, which is very important in conducting one’s day-to-day business in Egypt.<\/p>\n
Back in June 2009 a court had ruled against his plea to be legally recognised as a Christian. He is appealing that verdict, but as yet no hearing date has been set. He and his family, therefore, are living in legal and religious-status limbo, which has had unfortunate ramifications. For instance, in September 2009 he and his daughter were stopped at the Cairo Airport two different times as they attempted to travel abroad, and Mr Gohary’s passport was confiscated. There was no reason offered by the authorities regarding this denial of travel. Six months on an Administrative Court has refused to return his passport, and yet again no reason has been offered for the basis of this removal of freedom of movement from Mr Gohary, who as an Egyptian citizen has the legal right to travel.<\/p>\n
His is not the first case of this kind. In August 2007 Mohammed Hegazi was the first Egyptian Muslim convert to Christianity to try to change his religious registration. At the time he explained that he wanted to do this so that his children could be raised openly as Christians, be issued Christian birth certificates, and be married in Church. He also stated that he wants to be able to set a precedent of justice for other converts. His case parallels Maher Gohary’s, in that he too has had unjustified and unjustifiable rulings made against him. His appeal will only now be heard this month. Since 2007 he has been unable to obtain a passport for himself or anyone in his family.<\/p>\n
Being a Christian is not illegal in Egypt but conversion from Islam to any other religion is punishable by death under one interpretation of Islamic law. The government has never ordered or carried out such an execution, according to the press, but Mr Hegazi was forced to go into hiding when he received death threats from Islamic clerics claiming his apostasy deserved death. Most other Muslim converts to Christianity either depart soon for the West or try to keep a very low profile. They usually face ostracism from their family, friends and neighbours and if the conversion becomes general knowledge they can receive death threats from militants, or harassment by police who use the laws against ‘insulting religion’ or ‘disturbing public order’ as the justification.<\/p>\n
In an editorial for the Washington Post, the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the highest authority in Egypt for issuing fatwas, wrote against the killing of apostates stating that Muslims can choose a religion other than Islam. However, his opinion was roundly condemned by conservative Muslims who said he was inviting Muslims to leave their faith.<\/p>\n
Because of the very real social taboo against conversion from Islam these two men who are trying to get official recognition are being very courageous. We should actively support their attempts at seeking fair outcomes, as Christian converts to Islam readily get new registration with their new religious status on it. This is an issue of equal treatment under the law, and a matter of social justice. This issue is causing a huge uproar in Egypt today. We will be watching with deep concern and interest the outcome of the appeals for both men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maher Gohary is a new Christian convert from a Muslim background currently engaged in a long legal battle to change his state-issued religious registration from his old status of ‘Muslim’ to reflect his new status as a ‘Christian’. This will allow Mr Gohary and his family to be identified accurately, which is very important in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}